This is a political post.
After two long years of waiting, the weekend that March Madness started and Duke nearly got knocked out before the sweet sixteen, the investigation into if the sitting President of the United States colluded with foreign agents was completed. The conclusion? We don't know yet. We don't know because the Justice Department won't release the completed document. The newly appointed Attorney General has produced a four page summary of the three hundred page report suspiciously fast, and said report in his opinion indicates there was no collusion. Honestly, 99.9% of us still don't know what the report actually says.
Now, a number of indignant conservative pundits and legislators want to believe we do, although at this point we have what at best might be considered the Cliffs Notes version, more likely a Wikipedia stub entry or at worst a confederate version of the history of the war between the states. That the Attorney General then indicated that the person who was the object of the investigation will get to see it - and edit it - before any of the rest of us just keeps making the whole thing look less and less legitimate.
And the powers that be, those powers that we are investigating, just don't care what we think.
The law, for those who don't know, is a funny thing. Open to vast interpretation. You know what I mean. Think about how you can watch on video an officer clearly be seen doing X or Y action that obviously shows that they broke the law, but that same video when viewed by a friendly prosecutor the action somehow fails to rise to the level of prosecutable offense. This is one of those moments, only on a national scale. We have all sat here, listened and learned of meetings with foreign agents not reported and then lied about, clear and convincing conflicts of interest, and of business dealings with foreign agents not disclosed. Yet we're supposed to believe the report yields nothing even of intrinsic value? The police have investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong, and no you can't see the evidence. Here we just substitute the word 'government' for 'police.'
Barr's interpretation of the evidence and if it rises to the level of collusion is plainly suspect. And now that we know the summary he produced now looks more like a 30 second synopsis of a 26 hour Ken Burns documentary only raises more questions. And if the pool of people who can see the raw evidence is limited to those who feel that the investigation was a waste of time, this begins to look like even more collusion. That Cheeto was okay with releasing it, but his hand picked people want it edited first gives rise to the idea that the truth only those pages may get more than a few more folks locked up. And the inane assertion that Congress can't see the raw evidence when there are sitting members of Congress with top secret clearance is pure 'shuck and jive.' A government of checks and balances under this administration is no more.
We need to do better. The treatment of this investigation is part of, and maybe the culmination of a continuing degradation of the truth via the assertion that opinion outweighs facts, a theme that began day one when Cheeto swore his inaugural audience was the largest ever and has gone on to become this administration's stock and trade. That they expect half the country to believe whatever they say despite their long track record of half truths, deception, deflection and out right falsehoods is laughable. That the other half this country is happy to go along with this farce as long as that they get to impose their beliefs on the first half is just frightening.
This is why voting is important, and why everyday the Democratic establishment appears to pin it's hopes on reason and common sense winning out seems more and more like a pipe dream.
We live interesting times. I really wish we did not.
After two long years of waiting, the weekend that March Madness started and Duke nearly got knocked out before the sweet sixteen, the investigation into if the sitting President of the United States colluded with foreign agents was completed. The conclusion? We don't know yet. We don't know because the Justice Department won't release the completed document. The newly appointed Attorney General has produced a four page summary of the three hundred page report suspiciously fast, and said report in his opinion indicates there was no collusion. Honestly, 99.9% of us still don't know what the report actually says.
Now, a number of indignant conservative pundits and legislators want to believe we do, although at this point we have what at best might be considered the Cliffs Notes version, more likely a Wikipedia stub entry or at worst a confederate version of the history of the war between the states. That the Attorney General then indicated that the person who was the object of the investigation will get to see it - and edit it - before any of the rest of us just keeps making the whole thing look less and less legitimate.
And the powers that be, those powers that we are investigating, just don't care what we think.
The law, for those who don't know, is a funny thing. Open to vast interpretation. You know what I mean. Think about how you can watch on video an officer clearly be seen doing X or Y action that obviously shows that they broke the law, but that same video when viewed by a friendly prosecutor the action somehow fails to rise to the level of prosecutable offense. This is one of those moments, only on a national scale. We have all sat here, listened and learned of meetings with foreign agents not reported and then lied about, clear and convincing conflicts of interest, and of business dealings with foreign agents not disclosed. Yet we're supposed to believe the report yields nothing even of intrinsic value? The police have investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong, and no you can't see the evidence. Here we just substitute the word 'government' for 'police.'
Barr's interpretation of the evidence and if it rises to the level of collusion is plainly suspect. And now that we know the summary he produced now looks more like a 30 second synopsis of a 26 hour Ken Burns documentary only raises more questions. And if the pool of people who can see the raw evidence is limited to those who feel that the investigation was a waste of time, this begins to look like even more collusion. That Cheeto was okay with releasing it, but his hand picked people want it edited first gives rise to the idea that the truth only those pages may get more than a few more folks locked up. And the inane assertion that Congress can't see the raw evidence when there are sitting members of Congress with top secret clearance is pure 'shuck and jive.' A government of checks and balances under this administration is no more.
We need to do better. The treatment of this investigation is part of, and maybe the culmination of a continuing degradation of the truth via the assertion that opinion outweighs facts, a theme that began day one when Cheeto swore his inaugural audience was the largest ever and has gone on to become this administration's stock and trade. That they expect half the country to believe whatever they say despite their long track record of half truths, deception, deflection and out right falsehoods is laughable. That the other half this country is happy to go along with this farce as long as that they get to impose their beliefs on the first half is just frightening.
This is why voting is important, and why everyday the Democratic establishment appears to pin it's hopes on reason and common sense winning out seems more and more like a pipe dream.
We live interesting times. I really wish we did not.
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